


blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west

by kathedrel



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Post-Book: Night Watch (Discworld)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23040442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathedrel/pseuds/kathedrel
Summary: What Keel had needed, Vetinari thought, was a silver cigar case.
Relationships: Havelock Vetinari/Samuel Vimes
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west

**Author's Note:**

> Written halfway through Night Watch. Apologies for any inaccuracies.

Something about the way Sam Vimes smoked was familiar. Vetinari noticed, because some things were difficult to avoid.

He did his search quietly. The same way he once did when he was still in the Assassins’ Guild, when his wits and not-quite-black clothing was all that garnered him his secrets. He’s not out of practice - that would mean he would be dead - but the world moves a bit less slowly than it did when he followed John Keel down the streets and through the alley down to a temple, all those years ago. He hadn’t understood at the time. Difficult to understand why a man would argue with monks and how he could be put together by a cigarette case.

He stands outside the Watch house, and waits while Vimes put out the half of a cigar, before folding it back into that tarnished case of his. He still held it like it contained his whole world, sometimes. Vetinari wondered if he knew. Probably not. Most people didn’t acknowledge their weaknesses, because that would mean admitting they existed. 

“I know you’re there,” Vimes says, one boot against the wall, the other planted firmly on the cobblestones. Vetinari steps closer.

“I am.” He doesn’t mention that it was intentional – people either figure that out on first try or never learn. He trusted Vimes to be the latter.

Vimes stared off into the street for a long minute. There was a rose bush, thorns tangling as it tried to climb a brick wall. Above that, a single spring of lilac.

Vimes was on another cigar. He pulled a shorter, slimmer one from his pocket – the one without the case – and held it out, cinders burning on the ends. He was still looking at the rosebush, or, if Vetinari knew a single thing, the lilac.

Vetinari took the cigar, one single breath, and let the smoke dangle from his fingers.

It made sense that Vimes’ one thing would be from the person he loved. People like Vimes - the very rare ones that you’d come across, once every revolution or so, - they couldn’t live for the Job. Vimes could save a city and politic and run a copper house, but at the end of the night, he’d feel empty if someone hadn’t left him a half-eaten plate of breakfast to come home to.

Vetinari remembered when he’d lived at the Assassins’ Guild, how his window had constantly been fixed open with the hope that someone interesting would come in. He’d studied and studied and studied in the freezing cold, but he’d never once thought of closing the window.

Vetinari associates three things with Vimes; an unpolished cigarette case, dented armour, and a lilac.

When he’s indulged in one too many late-night games of chess [1], sometimes he adds a fourth.

It made sense that Sam Vimes was the type of person to be held together by love. Most people are. They fall for the same tricks over and over again, if they think it’ll make them feel less alone.[2]

Some people were like Sam Vimes, the type of people who needed both, the Job and a life. Some people could afford love and not just purpose.

And some people had cities to run. Vetinari was wasting his time, on an adolescent obsession long passed, a mystery long solved. 

“Long ride from here to Pseudopolis,” He said, and watched as Vimes flinched, just slightly, before responding, “Depends how you go.”

“Depends,” Vetinari said, and did up a single button on his coat. It wasn’t quite cold yet, but it would be, and getting sick always meant having to sort through young hopefuls trying to poison his tea.

He tosses the cigar, and nods as Vimes catches it, letting it fall before tamping out the last embers. 

For one long moment, Vetinari stared. Then he walked away.

* * *

[1] And even occasionally a cup of black tea – no milk, one sugar.

[2] The reason Vetinari has had hold of the city so long is probably that he _understood_ this phenomenon in other people, while completely evading its occurrence in himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d" by Walt Whitman, with slightly modified punctuation.


End file.
